High Sierra Topix

I have been seeing an Air Quality Alert on the NWS for the last couple of days starting
south of Mammoth down to SEKI.
If your were out this past weekend I would like to hear you experience with the
smoke, and did it affect your visibility in any way. Thanks

Yosemite was really really hazy yesterday until late afternoon when it got a little better. The Slope fire is still going, and I think there is one other as well. I wasn't having any breathing issues, but it was a bit of a bummer.

Hi AlmostThere

Thanks for chiming in.
How was it at sunset, sometimes smoke in the air can create quite dramatic
colors at sunset?

We didn't really stick around that late. Looked mostly clear when we left. It was actually really cloudy earlier in the day, in addition to the haze.

From Sunday. It was clear in the morning with clouds in the afternoon.

i have been on 2 trips:

1. upper kern basin to and from onion valley from ~august 1'st to august 14'th
2. tehipite valley to ionian basin to and from south lake - sept 2'cd to sept 19'th.

the fore has been brewing for 7 weeks now and the air quality from bubbs creek to evolution valley really sucks at times. it is thickest down in bubbs creek.
during the evening hours, the air retrogrades downhill and so when the air current shift in the early morning, the middle fork gets filled up with smoke which then trickles up all of the other valleys from goddard creek to dusy basin... and it then overflows over the passes and gets as far north as evolution valley. i saw it.

while in tehipte valley the first day i entered, the smoke was so thick, i could barely see the opposing walls such as the gorge of despair. next morning, it was as clear as a bell... on;y to get filled up again by the aftrenoon. some days were better than others while some days were worse.

i was cursing the NPS for letting it brew for so long...
(but that is me being selfish)

i suppose if the winds got going REALLY strong and the fire started to go out of control, then the NPS would act on it.... and then, one could say... it would have been a helluva lot easiernto put it out on august 1'st.

other than the pollution from the fire... i have noted that over the past 15 years, the increasing amount of brown muck you see when looking west back into the central valley. problem - human population and the resulting growth of pollution sources.

Was in Humpreys Basin last weekend 9/16-9/18- Thursday was a tiny bit hazy, Friday was pretty hazy/smokey in the morning and less so in the afternoon after the winds kicked in. Saturday was clear.Here is a pic from Friday

I went in over Shepard's Pass and wandered around Wales Lake, Mt. Barnard & Russell, and the Upper Kern Basin from 9/12 - 9/19. It was incredibly variable! The day I was on top of Barnard was perhaps the clearest day I've ever experienced in the Sierra. Two days later, on top of Russell, the east side of the crest was awful. Most days were clear in the morning. One afternoon, in the Upper Kern, was like being inside an incinerator.

I led a geology field trip to Kings Canyon (to near Road's End) Saturday 9/18, and there was a fire burning down to the river upstream of Boyden Cave (lots of fire fighting folk watching it carefully). The fabled Junction View was not much of a view. One could barely see Spanish Mtn through the smoke. The smoke was thick enough from Junction View to Road's End to be unpleasant to breathe. It gave me a sore throat.

BrianF;
I hiked out of Humphreys Basin on Monday 9/13, and I thought it seemed pretty bad, but looking at your picture, it must have gotten a lot worse. That morning in Humphreys Basin, the smell of smoke was very evident, but not so visible. When I got to Piute Pass, smoke and haze could be seen in the Owens Valley, and by the time I was at the trailhead parking area, I could no longer see the Owens Valley because the haze was so thick. And the Sabrina Basin that afternoon looked ugly, like a smoggy day in southern California back in the 70's.
I coughed for a few days after returning, feeling like I had spent time in a smoky bar.
Herm